Lessons
by Noodle-licious
Summary: A one-shot JohnKat fic where John tries to teach Karkat to play piano. Enjoy!


I lie back in my seat, trying to relax after today's events. I had been tripped, fought with, called names, and pushed. Still, I had 2 hours left until this stupid school was out. I loved Earth and all, but some of the other students were worse than Gamzee when he's sober.

Right now I had a lunch period, so I usually hide here in the chorus room. No one else is ever here, except today, as the teacher finished positioning the new piano. The old, electric one had stopped working after someone's (probably Gamzee's) soda spilled on it. Since the old one was about to wear out anyways, this one was a nice, grand piano. No one was allowed near it without the teacher's permission.

I suddenly heard talking behind me as people entered the room. "Okay, man, it's finally here."

"Oh, wow!" I turned to find Dave and John at the entrance of the room, with John looking quite excited. Then he saw me. "Hey, Karkat."

"'Sup." Dave added.

"Nothing. What are you guys doing here?"

"John wanted to be the first to see the new piano. What are _you _doing here?

"I'm always here."

"_Look_ at this!" John had rushed over to the piano and was looking it over. "It's _beautiful!_" He pressed on one of the ivory colored keys and the sound reverberated through the entire room.

"John!" I warned him, "You're not supposed to touch that, remember?"

"I asked to play it as soon as I heard it was coming."

"You play piano?" This came out in a more shocked manner than I wanted it to.

"Well, yeah. I don't have anything better to do in my free time."

"You two ladies have fun, I'm hungry." Dave walked away. The room was empty now, the teacher long gone to eat lunch.

John was already sitting at the piano, and he pushed his fingers down on the keys. A chord sounded, and I realized that this would be good. I moved closer, sitting behind him.

Suddenly his hands began to move. From the piano escaped a song, not upbeat, or downbeat, but somewhere in the middle. I found the song to be repetitive, but then change and seem more eerie, then back to the start. Though short, as I imagined a musical piece to be longer, but I still never heard anything like it.

"That was amazing!" I said to him.

John gave me a questioning look. "What? That was Ode to Joy." When I didn't answer, he said: "Just a warm up song."

"Just a warm up?" There was more? This boy was more talented than I thought.

"Well, if you _really_ wanna hear something, check _this_ out!" He replaced his hand on the keys. When he pressed down, a slightly off-tune chord played. "Damn it." He readjusted his hands and tried again. Now the sound was smoother, but haunting. "There we go." His left hand began to move, starting a song. Already beautiful, when he added his right hand, Playing slow, then speeding up, and suddenly slowing down again, it sent a chill down my spine.

Man, he was amazing. At this moment I wondered, caught up in the music, why I had ever hated him. How could someone so bad do something so good? In fact, as I thought about it, he was really nice. Funny, too. He wasn't even half bad looking.

A sudden change in rhythm interrupted my thoughts. I realized that this part of the song didn't seem all too advanced. I mean, I could never play it, but it _sounded_ simple. I stood up and walked over a few steps until I was directly behind the piano seat. Leaning forward, I let my fingers loose and began to add to John's tune.

Surprisingly, it sounded good.

He stopped playing and turned to me. "Do you play?"

"What? No."

"Well, you should. You have a good ear."

"Where would I learn?"

He crossed his arms. "I could teach you."

"Who taught you?"

"I taught myself. Like I said, I have nothing better to do." He turned back to the instrument, put his hands on it, and looked at me expectantly.

"What?" I asked, and he nodded his head to the side, gesturing me to sit next to him. He scooted over to make room for me. "No, I can't-"

As I began to walk away, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up next to him. "C'mon! You've got a _lot_ of potential!"

"Fine, fine!" I ripped my hand away, and sat down with him. "Just shut up!"

He put his hands on the instrument and looked at me. "Put your fingers here." When I put my hands on top of his, he laughed. "No, in a different octave."

"What's and octave?"

"Golly, this is gonna be harder than I thought. Well, it's a set of eight notes. As in, if you play one note-" He played one, "And another one eight white keys away-" He played another. "They sound the same, but… different. They harmonize." He played them at the same time, and he was right.

"Cool." I said.

"You try."

I put a finger on a random key, and counted. Six, seven, eight. I put my other finger here, and pressed both down. _Finally, I did _something_ right_.

"Now." John put his hands fully on the keyboard. "Do this in a different octave." I counted from his hands, sixteen instead of eight because my hands didn't fit. "Good. This is C position."

"Okay."

"Now, the first notes of Ode to Joy are these-" He played a chord, and I repeated.

He continued to try to teach me in this manner throughout the lunch period, replaying the song often, usually up to where I had learned. He eventually just had to teach me the right hand and left hand separately, because I couldn't keep up with both and kept getting confused.

By the time that the period was almost over, I had learned the full song with my right hand and the first few notes with my left. John had also taught me some terminology that I might need if I ever picked up sheet music. He was starting to actually show and explain to me how to read music when the bell rang.

I stood up. I hadn't brought anything. "Can I see you again? OH!" I covered my mouth. I hadn't meant for it to sound like that. I lowered my hands. "Not like that… I mean…" I buried my face in my palms. I could feel my face becoming red. Partially I didn't want him to see my blood color, but I mostly didn't want him to see my blushing at all. I groaned.

"For piano lessons. It's okay, I know." He pulled my hands off of my face, and lifted my head so he could see my face clearly. "See you tomorrow." He planted his lips on my forehead for a brief second, and then ran off to his next class.


End file.
